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92 Johan Saravanamuttu

second only to Facebook, but its earnings declined some 30 per cent by 2018.
Its latest available audit, for 2014, showed that FGV was RM6 billion in the
13
red. Other calculations have put FGV’s accumulated losses at RM8.7 billion
(Malaysiakini 2017b). FELDA voters proved to be a crucial factor as by some
calculations, BN lost 27 of the 53–54 FELDA-area seats in GE14 (Pakiam
2018). Added to this were a plethora of China-funded megaprojects, such
as the East Coast Rail Link, which involved a loan of RM55 billion from
China’s Exim bank, and projects linked to ports, property developments, and
industrial parks, which Mahathir and the PH exploited to a maximum degree
as surrendering Malaysia’s sovereignty to China (Saravanamuttu 2017). is
foreign policy ‘turn’ of high dependence and cosiness towards China was also
linked to a purported bailout by the Asian superpower of Najib’s 1MDB debt.
On the PH side, a pledge to hand over power to Anwar after a transitional
period under Mahathir can be viewed as bandwagoning on the reform agendas
of PKR and DAP. e plan underlined the need for continuity with the
reform agendas originally set out by the ‘Reformasi generation’, reforms which
resonated with new voters. (Arguably PAS had also bene ted from a path-
dependent legacy of reform, as evidenced by its strong performance in Malay-
belt states.) Growing disenchantment with Najib and UMNO, especially in
the urbanised west coast states, compensated for the fact that PH had poorer
resources and party machinery than BN. Najib’s purported collusion with PAS
and his willingness to cooperate with the Islamic party’s leader on RUU355
to facilitate hudud legislation lent credence to suspicions of a surreptitious
UMNO–PAS pact that would have hurt BN’s consociational politics if made
public. UMNO’s peninsular partners, Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (the
Malaysian People’s Movement Party, Gerakan), MCA, and MIC, su ered
the consequences of these developments. In the end, BN’s popular votes
plummeted to an historic low of 34 per cent, indicative of the electorate’s
rejection of BN’s non-Malay parties.
e next sections will expand on the theme of continuity in change at
the state level of contestation. e continuity in the major swing away from
BN since 2008, alluded to earlier, only occurred in full measure in 2018. I
will attempt to show how the rupture of BN hegemony played out di erently
across regions. Overall, I argue that in the west-coast states, the fragmentation
of Malay votes bene ted PH, not BN and even less so PAS. My hypothesis is
that despite PAS’s not being in PH, voters considered PAS to be in opposition
to BN rather than to PH. us two opposition groups drastically eroded BN’s
vote share. is idea helps explain the comprehensive vote swing against BN in
all states, by suggesting that PAS voters added to a nationwide anti-BN swing.

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